The Same Sky
by Illgresi
Summary: The story of the chosen avatars of the sun and the moon and the cataclysmic events that shaped their lives.
1. Daybreak

**_A/N:_ **_This is the first actual fanfic I've ever written. Realistically, it's the first bit of story-writing that I've ever really put any thought into. Your feedback is therefore warmly welcomed._

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Leona woke to the sun streaming through the thin windows of her chambers. She felt groggy, and her bedcovers seemed fit to suffocate her. She wriggled impatiently out from under the heavy wool blanket overlaying her four-poster bed, haphazardly swinging her arm and knocking over the half-full chalice of wine that sat upon her bedside table. 

"Gods," she cursed under her breath, her head pounding as she shakily drew herself upright. Just how much had she had to drink at the feast? Her memory was foggy, and she was having trouble fighting against the pull of gravity, willing her to lay back down. She was well on the way to doing just that when a series of urgent knocks rang out on the heavy wooden door opposite her bed. 

Leona mustered a great effort and stood, striding towards the door with all of the dignity she could manage. How shameful – the greatest young warrior in all of the Solari clan, barely able to stand on her own, and still clad in her dark velvet bedclothes at an hour far past dawn. She stifled a yawn and swung the door open. 

"Oh, it's you," she said, regarding the figure before her with some mixture of disdain and fondness. 

The young woman standing at the door was the same height as Leona, but her frame was more boyish. Diana had been born of the Solari, just like Leona herself – but unlike the other Solari children, her hair no longer blazed with the colours of the sun, though she had been born with locks of tremendous red. Instead, it had inexplicably faded to a pale blonde, closer resembling the stormy palette of the moon. Her eyes were a steely grey, which only served to help further alienate her from the rest of her peers, who sported irises of brilliant bronze and gold. 

Diana smiled meekly. 

"May I come in?" she asked formally, though she was already halfway into the room. 

Leona stepped to the side to allow Diana to enter, and closed the door behind her. She was grateful for the opportunity to sit back down, and made a beeline for the comfort of her bed. 

"How was the feast?" Diana asked as she wandered over to one of the windows, peering out over the courtyard of the grand manor that Leona's family had presided over for many years. _How is she so light on her feet? _Leona winced, raising a hand to her aching temples. 

"Loud. Eventful. Full of punch-drunk council members," Leona responded shortly, pushing a stray strand of sunset-gold hair away from her eyes. "As you would know, had you attended." 

Diana let out a short, husky laugh, pivoting towards her golden-eyed companion. "You know as well as I that there are far more interesting things on Mount Targon than anything that could occur within the Great Hall." 

"We are the descendants of Solari elders, Diana," Leona said coolly. "We have a duty." 

"Duty be damned," Diana responded, sitting down next to Leona, who flinched away. "Is it that you are frightened, sweet one?" 

Leona's heart fluttered slightly at Diana's words, though she could not understand why. Diana had been a strange child, dubbed a shame to her parents and everything the Solari stood for, but Leona had taken pity on the girl and become her only ally. Her duty to her family, her role in the Solari society, was completely at odds with her kinship with Diana – but still she persevered, and occasionally she would wonder why she bothered, before having to stop herself for fear of realizing something she did not want to be true. Sometimes she worried that she, too, would be labelled a traitor – a chaser of the moon – and her fears were only exacerbated by Diana's rebellious behaviours, including dodging important council feasts to go stargazing. She knew Diana's absence would not have gone unnoticed, and she fully expected that she would somehow be implicated in it. 

"Yes, Diana," Leona spoke quietly, averting her eyes from Diana's watchful gaze. "I am frightened. I do not wish to be labelled a heretic. My family would cast me out, and I would have nothing. The Solari life is all that I know." 

"I have always had nothing, and yet still I live," Diana said. "Freer than anybody else on this mountain, except perhaps the cave-folk below." 

"You have always had nothing," Leona repeated. "And I have always had everything. My life has been set out since the day I was born, and I do not believe it a worthwhile choice to turn away from that." 

"If you had seen what I have seen, you would not speak that way." Diana stood suddenly, her back to Leona. 

"And what have you seen, Diana?" Leona retorted. "Darkness is all that the night has to offer." 

Diana turned to face Leona, her eyes cold. "I do not take you for a liar, Radiant Dawn. But if you continue to walk the path that you have been set, that is exactly what you will become. You will lead your people with lies, and so the paths of generations to come will be laden with deceit." 

Leona felt a sudden surge of anger. Who was Diana to speak against what the elders had taught for thousands upon thousands of years? She could not bear to entertain the idea that the world she loved so dearly could be based on anything but truth and the illumination of the Solari's beloved sun. 

"I fear you may not know as much as you might think," Leona replied, her voice steady. "You may not believe, but that does not give you any right to speak ill of the traditions of those who have raised us from young." 

"I raised myself from young, Leona," Diana said. "And your traditions are none of mine." 

With that, Diana strode swiftly to the door and opened it, slipping out of the room with not so much as a glance back at Leona.


	2. Rite of Passage

"Leona!" A voice carried down the stone corridor as Leona walked quickly to the dining hall. She turned expectantly to see her mother Freya rushing towards her.

"Yes, mother?" Leona responded, sweeping her golden cloak behind her.

"I hear the moon girl paid you a visit this morning," Freya started breathlessly. "I implore you, Leona, you mustn't see her any more. Her absence at the feast was the last straw for the elders, and –"

"Stop," Leona interrupted. "She sought me out, not vice versa. I do not wish to be implicated in her wrongdoings."

"You have a kind soul, young one," Freya replied softly, taking her daughter's face in her hand. "Do not let anybody take advantage of that."

Leona took her mother's hand in her own, drawing it away from her cheek, just as her father came stalking down the corridor towards them.

"Leona," he greeted her curtly, before launching into the tirade she had been expecting. "It does you no good to have your sacrilegious… associate… visit you after being absent from the grand feast only two evenings prior to your Rite of Kor. The elders already suspect that you are in leagues with her. Is it your wish to derail your destiny and be labelled a traitor?"

"Of course not, father," Leona said, her heart sinking at the reminder of her impending Rite of Kor. "I was not expecting her to call on me."

"That matters not," her father replied brusquely. "You must not be seen with her. Come now, brunch is served. We have much to discuss. Several potential suitors will be present at your Rite ceremony."

Leona did not much feel like eating – in fact, she felt downright ill. She had known since she was old enough to understand the concept of matrimony that she would one day be paired up with a highborn man from amongst the Solari, or at least some rich artisan of the Rakkor, the wider tribe that her family was bound to. The thought had never appealed to her – her heart ached, in fact, at the thought of being forced to love a man she felt nothing for.

And then there was her Rite of Kor, a ceremonial battle that would see her fight another young warrior to the death for the honour of wielding one of the great relic weapons of Solari lore. She had not ever dreaded anything so much in her life. While a fantastic warrior, dubbed the Radiant Dawn by her people, she had no desire to kill. The Rakkor were a tribe well-versed in combat, and her own parents had been fierce warriors who had fought in many of the wars of Runeterra and lead countless fearless vanguards, but bloodthirstiness was a trait that Leona had most certainly not inherited.

As they neared the dining hall, the clinking of goblets and cutlery echoed forth, accompanied by the low murmuring of voices. Upon entering, Leona noticed that six of the twelve elders were seated at the high table, talking amongst each other. They fell silent abruptly when they noticed the newcomers.

"Patrik," Elder Korin called out, raising his goblet and nodding his head. "Good day."

"And to you, Korin," Leona's father responded as he lead his family to a table near one of the enormous windows of the hall, and ushered Freya and Leona into their seats before taking his own. Serving women came scurrying over to the table, bringing trays laden with meats, bread, cheeses and all manner of beverages, including, to Leona's disgust, a large jug of mulled wine.

"You need to eat," Freya said, noticing that Leona had made no attempt to fill the plate that had been set in front of her. She began piling Leona's plate with roasted vegetables and cuts of meats in her stead.

"I'm not hungry," Leona responded dully. She was still thinking about her Rite of Kor, knowing there was no way she could ever get out of it without dishonouring her family beyond reprieve, and likely getting herself executed on top of that. No wonder she had had so much to drink last night. It had allowed her to forget what awaited her.

"So, Leona," Patrik began conversationally, cutting into a thick portion of pulled pork. "The baker's boy, Pantheon, is shaping up to be quite the soldier. They say he may well lead the Rakkor in the next war, whenever it may come."

"Pantheon is my friend," Leona said dismissively, poking the pumpkin on her plate with no intention of eating it. "I don't intend to marry him."

"Your intentions are not my interest," her father pointed out. "Though they should be to uphold the honour of our family and the Solari, whatever the cost may be."

All of a sudden, Leona felt like she could no longer stand to be in the same room as him.

"Excuse me," she said, abruptly standing up from the table and leaving the hall, ignoring her mother's frantic calling and the eyes of the elders that trailed her.

She moved quickly, escaping the manor and pacing across the wide courtyard into the vastness of the wood beyond. She began to run, following a familiar path through the towering trees and rugged roots.

She felt safe here. Free. _Free_, she thought. _Diana_.

For just a split second, Leona thought that maybe they could run away after all.


	3. Solitude

Diana felt hollow as she left Leona's quarters, forgetting to close the door behind her. She had longed and fought for the acceptance of her people for many years before realizing it was fruitless – and yet she still fought for Leona's. More than that, she fought for Leona's trust, for her confidence. Leona was the only friend she had ever had, the only one of the Solari clan who had let her speak without striking her down. But even Leona did not see any sense in the discoveries Diana had made, no matter how she might try to convince her.

Diana had always been different. Inquisitive by nature, she had perused Solari archives as soon as she had begun to learn to read, and she had learned much about the history of her people – much, she had noted, that she suspected she never would have found had it not been for her curiosity. The night sky had long been her succor from the derision of her peers, and she had pondered the dominance of the sun in Solari culture for as long as she had known about it. To her, it seemed nonsensical that two celestial objects who shared the same sky should be in opposition to each other.

The elders would not hear of her theories about the moon. She knew they branded her a traitor, a shame to the Solari. Her own parents had disowned her out of pure humiliation. And still she pursued what she believed was being held from her and the rest of her society: the truth.

She did not bother going to the dining hall, despite the fact that her stomach was grumbling with hunger. She knew she would only be glared at, judged, and likely abused, in one way or another. Diana typically ate late at night, while the rest of the world slept – either that, or she'd pay a visit to one of the many alehouses in the smaller villages of Mount Targon, where who she was did not matter. Diana would often spend days away from the homeground of the people she had been born to. Knowing that no one would ever come looking for her brought her solace. Freedom was something she had, she believed, that so many others did not – but it had certainly come at a cost.

Diana strode lithely through the Solari village, ignoring the stares and whispers of the people around her. She had grown so accustomed to it that it seemed to her like insignificant background noise - the lowing of farm animals to a wizened shepherd. Once she had reached the edge of the village, she trudged on until she reached a curving, sloping path that began a descent down Mount Targon, to the villages of the cave-people and other Rakkor tribes.

She followed the path downwards until she reached a flat platform-like expanse of stone that extended into a short stretch of forest. On the other side, she knew, was an enormous field, where she would often lie alone on starry nights and watch the sky, and beyond that, a secluded, rocky valley housing a great network of caves and ancient temples that Diana had still not yet fully explored, even after many years. One of said caves had been the closest thing to a home that Diana had had since her parents had let her go, and that was where she was headed now.

Thoughts swirled in Diana's head as she trekked through the wooded area. She wondered, for the millionth time, why she bothered to ever go back to the Solari village. She had taken all of the books that she had ever wanted or needed – hundreds of archives and tomes collected over hundreds of back-and-forth trips – and she knew that the likelihood of ever convincing the elders that there was more to life than the sun was negligible. She suspected, in fact, that every time she returned to the village, she was bringing herself closer and closer to being officially branded a heretic and executed. It was a strange conundrum – if she did not show up for major events, it was a show of dishonor and disrespect towards her culture, but it was not as if she was wanted at any of the traditional Solari ceremonies to start with. She could not win.

But then there was Leona, Diana thought as she reached the tall, dark entrance to her cave. Not only her only friend, but perhaps a woman that she loved. It had taken her a long time to become comfortable with the fact that her feelings might extend beyond just those of companionship; at first, she had been disgusted with herself for even considering such a thing. A lot of it, she was sure, was rooted in gratitude – Leona had given her a voice, allowed her to speak, and actually listened – but more of it had found base in who Leona was, gracious, kind, and unequivocally beautiful, and Diana had found herself growing inimitably more attracted to her by the day.

She knew it was a mistake, that it was wrong, and though it hurt worse than anything she had ever known, even the rest of her people turning her away, she could not seem to let it go. Leona was a true Solari woman, the Radiant Dawn, a warrior who would one day lead her people, and lead them well. She would complete her Rite of Kor, emerge victorious, and one day marry a high Solari lord or a battle-scarred artisan and live her life for the glory of the sun in the heights of Mount Targon, while Diana wandered an exile, a disgrace. She knew that, even all of that aside, Leona would not ever feel anything of such magnitude for her. Diana knew that Leona's most predominant feeling towards her was one of pure pity, and she hated it.

Diana forcibly cleared her head of thoughts of Leona and settled onto a smooth rock near a fire pit she had dug in her cave, picking up one of the many large tomes she had yet to read. A small waterfall trickled into a pool of glimmering blue water nearby, and Diana beheld the calming, rhythmic beauty of it for a moment before shaking her head and turning her attention to the book in front of her.

She had been reading for a few hours when she came across what appeared to be a message, written in the very center of one of the pale, thin pages with curled, damp edges. It was encoded, the script strange and seemingly foreign, but Diana knew from her studies that it was simply ancient Rakkor, a dialect long buried as the language had transformed over centuries worth of generations.

Diana formed the words with her lips as she decoded them, unable to believe what she was reading. There, written in the tome, was a clue leading to the ancient Temple of the Moon, located in the very valley she had spent her days exploring.


End file.
